Drunk Before Dinner by M. Dalton Eloy

Drunk Before Dinner

by M. Dalton Eloy

He’d agreed to come only after multiple heated back-and-forth screaming matches and the realization that their hefty deposit was forfeit anyway. They wouldn’t let him change names on their flight reservation, and he doubted any of his bar buddies wanted to split the Habitación Romantica on a remote island off the coast of Cartagena for a week. It made him laugh thinking about Dave showering in the open-concept waterfall-style bathroom as the sunset reflected off his big, wide ass.

Amy and he had only recently called it quits, citing, as one does, “irreconcilable differences,” all of which had arisen since they’d booked this trip six months ago. He couldn’t stand the way she put his toothbrush away in the medicine cabinet each morning or her insistence on his use of sunscreen each day. She didn’t like his Tinder account.

The papers were all but signed. The days each kid spent with each parent allotted. But he was too cheap not to come to Colombia and she didn’t mind the discomfort, thinking, as their therapist suggested, that it might be just what they needed to work through this. He noted this was also how many a Dateline special started. No one laughed.

He purposely didn’t take the days off. He was spending enough on lawyers’ fees anyway. So, he’d retreated to a corner of the bungalow with his laptop and some noise-canceling headphones to work when Amy grabbed his right headphone and snapped it against the side of his face.

“Dinner’s at 8,” she said, walking towards the bathroom door in her bikini. She still looked great after three pregnancies and two children.

“We don’t have to eat together, you know. We can eat whenever and wherever we want.”

“It’s depressing to eat alone in such a beautiful place, David.”

“We’re getting divorced and sleeping in the same bed together in a Romance Suite on a tropical island. Seems like depressing is what we signed up for.”

“Sure, but whatever. The least you could do is eat dinner with me while we’re on this trip.”

The insanity of this thought almost spun him around in his chair, but he was tired of fighting.

“The world’s most depressing trip to paradise,” David sneered, packing up his laptop.

“Well let’s try to make the best of it then.” She slipped off her bottoms as she turned the corner into the bathroom. She knew what she was doing.

He followed her with his eyes and landed on the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the water. The big white backs of European snorkelers poked out of the crystal blue water like albino dolphins. A part of him wanted to spit on the water shoes of every tourist he saw. But they were dividing up assets next week. He couldn’t give Amy’s lawyer any more ammo.

Now, with the prospect of eating together in just a few hours, David set a course for the beach bar, determined to be drunk before dinner.

This was the exact kind of place they would have made fun of when they met. The perfect clarity of the water—without the tourists—reminded him of the time they went to Thailand. No reservations. No hotel. Just two one-way airplane tickets and a few big backpacks. They laughed at the fat, white, rich people at the resorts in their Tevas, carrying water bottles as big as their heads, emblazoned with American ski resort logos. They bummed from hostel to hostel, across Cambodia and Vietnam until they landed on the beach in the Philippines. A tent for a dollar a day. Two meals cooked by Juana. Mandatory drug use. Swimsuit optional.

For two weeks, they buried their shit in the sand, pissed in the water, and made love until sunrise. Once they couldn’t stand the smell of each other they raced to Manila for the luxury of a two-minute hot shower in a two-star hotel and to catch their flight home to reality the next day.

Coming back from the Philippines, his uncle landed him a job at a marketing agency promoting some niche liquor brands he’d hoarded when he was a bartender. Due to his deep love of drinking, he’d succeeded in promoting it to others and found himself in the position of plucking other drunks from behind the bar to do the same, giving them tabs at bars around the city to promote the newest flavored vodka to the newest tranche of investment banking interns in Midtown.

Amy had gone back to school to get her MBA, which meant all-night parties and high-paying internships in Boston for her while David stayed in New York City. Their relationship survived the grey winters and salmon shorts of Beantown, and they landed back in Brooklyn together with high-paying salaries and a mortgage.

Instead of the shining beaches of La Paz or the hooker-ridden streets of Medellín, Amy and David vacationed among the bright white walls of small Greek villages, asleep by ten. They conceived their first child—who they would have named Patricia, after Patti Smith—in an all-inclusive resort in the Dominican Republic, drinking all-you-can-drink mojitos, hesitant to hang in town after dark.

They licked their wounds as they vineyard-hopped through Chile, starting at the coast and inching inward.

The loneliness brought them closer; their pain assuaged by wine-drunk hangovers and red mouths. They thought it made them whole again.

As they got fatter and richer—had two kids—their trips changed to suit. He didn’t want to sleep on the floor of the Houston Airport to save a few hundred dollars anymore. The old ways sunk into the saccharine nostalgia that sustained bar conversations. Until they didn’t. Their trips shortened to a week to fit their work schedules. He traded his torn-up Vans for Sperry’s. His Emo rock tees became linen button-ups. Her cut-off jean shorts became maxi-skirts. “It’s safer,” they reassured themselves, “we need to make it home for the kids.”

Family trips were different. Flights were twice as expensive with two young kids, but their parents helped if they were invited. They spent a weekend at an all-inclusive resort in Belize, trading in American dollars for too-sweet frozen daiquiris, never out of view of the kiddy pool.

As he reminisced on their past trips together, David stormed out to find one of the three hotel bars on the island. Through a jungly pathway along the water, a hushed “amigo” emanated from what he thought to be inaccessible shoreline. The front edge of a dirty yellow canoe pulled through the low-hanging trees jutting out over the ocean. It sat low in the water, burdened by a cargo consisting of purses, Colombian wide-brimmed and multicolor sombreros, and leather sandals. Another salesman. They weren’t supposed to be allowed here, but the defenses against them were clearly faulty.

“Bracelet? Necklace? Good price.”

“I’m good on jewelry. Thanks, though,” he said, and pointed his nose back down the path to the bar.

“Ok. Weed? Cocaine? Ketamina?” A good Colombian salesperson always carried multiple wares.

This intrigued him. What better time than now? Showing up drunk and high to dinner with his soon-to-be-ex-wife tinged with exactly the brand of revenge he was interested in at the moment.

“Let me check out this cocaine.”

“Ven, amigo, ven,” David climbed aboard. The makeshift boat mocked him as it sunk even deeper into the water. He brushed the water’s surface with his hand. It was cold to the touch but there was a warmth somewhere deep below.

The salesman introduced himself as Franco, and David thought he said he was from Venezuela but his ability to understand Spanish lagged behind his ability to politely ask someone “De donde eres?” Franco offered David a well-used grocery bag filled with soft white powder that had been ripped and twisted and tied into a new, more economical bag. Franco swiped bills out of David’s open hand and handed some back, only to swipe again when David asked for more. As they shared David’s cocaine, they watched the sunset together far away on the ocean’s edge. New friends, united by a mutual taste for cocaine, silently appreciating the light purples and deep oranges of a fabulous sunset and a break from the day’s heat. Franco was visibly anxious when the last grocery bag was emptied.

“I get more?” He said as he grabbed his single wooden oar.

“No… I—” It was tough to speak. His mouth felt numb, which was normal for cocaine, but the numbness extended its fingers somewhere behind his throat, up the back of his head and palmed his forehead, fettering his faculties. He wanted to tell Franco he was good, but he wasn’t. He couldn’t form words. His brain-mouth barrier had thickened. The cocaine was having some kind of adverse effect. Or it wasn’t cocaine.

All of a sudden, he was not having fun.

He motioned as best he could that he wanted off this canoe. Franco paddled as close to the dock as he could. David rocked the boat filling it with water as he tried to collect his limbs and place them on the mossy wood. Franco seemed upset but not surprised.

“Mierda,” Franco exclaimed as he tried to wrap his arms around his many things before they were tossed overboard.

“Thanks,” was all David could muster.

He laid on the wet dock, blood rushing to his back and the backs of his calves. The high he’d felt just 15 minutes before was coagulating, whitewashing his face, and pulling him into the hard, splintered wood.

Could he stand up? He didn’t know, but the first step would be to thrash to the side to turn onto his stomach. Then it would be up to his arms to decide how they were getting home. Each limb seemed to be independent of one another. Where before they were one that moved, now they were many trying to move together.

He scraped along the dock, one scratching limp hand after another. Damp wood gathering in his fingernails. Progress felt great but something felt suspicious. He was covered in sweat, partially from physical exertions but in part because he thought he might be dying. His stomach was trembling from something different. This affliction from whatever drug he’d done had cost him some agency with important muscles. What had been a normal uncertainty in his bowel movements from the foreign foods he’d eaten now had nothing standing in its way. He tried to squeeze his cheeks together as he inched forward, but he couldn’t stop it. It came from inside of him and slid down his thighs. He was shitting his pants.

He needed to get back before anyone saw him like this.

He put his palms against the dock and pushed with all the wobbly might he could. As soon as his elbows locked, he managed a brief plank as he gathered his right knee under him, its left fellow following suit. He was cow-posed but quivering.

He crawled like this, inch-by-inch, until the heat and the sweat and the soiled pants got to him. He needed to dunk himself in the water, in part to cool himself off and in part to try and save himself the embarrassment of being discovered with the equivalent of a full diaper.

Turning on his side, he reached as far down as he could to dunk his hand in the water and bring as much as possible to his face. The cold water gave him some clarity. Cocaine—his old friend—had never done this to him.

The familiar sharpness of mind was there but it was matched with an equally unfamiliar pulsing paralysis. He was trapped in a body that no longer belonged to him. Reaching over for more refreshing ocean water, David overestimated his control. He managed a grunt before bellyflopping into the two-foot inlet. Enough to drown someone in his state.

Immediately, he took a bite of ocean floor dirt. He could only manage the cobra pose he needed to get his nose above water for a few seconds before he was face down again, exhausted. Effectively water-boarding himself, panic set in and David began to flail. Anything to make it the 5 feet ahead to the shore.

Arms splashing wildly, he managed to crawl under shin-deep water, sliding his face along the ocean floor, shoveling mud into the breast pocket of his linen shirt and into the front opening of his pants. The weight of his wet clothes burdened the already baby-like function of his limbs. He was drinking sandy, slushy water by the liter, choking through it, and using whatever he had left to rush for the shore. He couldn’t see how far ahead he needed to go. He couldn’t see anything. His eyes were covered in mud and his flailing caused the crystal water to go murky. If he didn’t make it soon, he might be the first adult in the history of this hotel to drown in three inches of water.

With one last gasp, David berthed onto shore like a long-dead whale about to blow. He coughed up a sludge of water and sand and probably vomit until it hurt. He was prostrate in the mud but no longer drowning. A breath. This couldn’t have been cocaine. Molly had never done this to him either. It must have been another of Franco’s offerings mixed up or mixed with cocaine. By way of elimination, this must be ketamina. David had never done Ketamine, but he had heard of a “K-Hole”. This felt how that sounded.

He wanted to yell out for help, but when the words formed in his head they melted on the way to his lips. The 7-minute walk to his casita felt like an ultra-marathon. Much worse, he couldn’t be seen like this. Muddy. Wet. Blubbering. Shitty.

He managed to pull his head up the 30 degrees necessary to see Franco paddling into the dregs of the sunset. Canoe weighted down with his goods ready for sale. Flush with cash.

He thought about Amy, the only person he wouldn’t mind seeing him covered in mud and excrement. Now that he wasn’t actively dying, he might even laugh if she laughed.

He needed her to help him. Again, he tried to scream. Just grunts and gurgles. Maybe it was best to just lay there. This had to eventually wear off, or he could die in silence. Both sounded better than crawling through the mud, soiling his pants, and crying.

But Amy. She would help. She would clean him up. She was probably waiting for him at dinner, not 40 yards away. If he could just get close enough, she would help.

He decided then it was worth a shot. He could find the means to gather his joints and muscles and bones and mud and shit and crawl his pathetic self to her feet. He could do that and she would help. She became his singular focus. His one objective. All he needed.

He lowered to his forearms, still on his knees and started to shuffle, plowing through the muddy sand as he inched toward dinner. He knew where it was. They’d had lunch there when they arrived. He was going to be a spectacle, but he wouldn’t care if Amy was there. She would know what to do.

As he slithered onto the rough foliage that butted up to the sand, onto the pebble pathways that cut his knees and elbows through his limp, wet linen, he thought back to their bikepacking trip in Chile. What a pleasure it was to spend time with only her. He packed the bikes. She planned the route. When a tire popped or his backpack burst open, he panicked; she was poised. She complemented his chaos, whether they were shitting in the sand in the Philippines or dining on the beach in the Dominican Republic. This was, unfortunately, no different. He needed her now, like always.

He finally arrived at dinner crawling on his hands and knees followed by a snail’s trail of ocean water, waste, and worry.

“David?” he heard as he breached the entrance to the open plaza cut between the trees speckled with tables and munching morons. From behind him he heard it again, “David!” this time with more concern. He was sure she’d just seen his shitty ass.

“Oh my god, are you okay?!”

“Graughghh,” he answered. It meant yes, but its effect was the opposite.

The other tourists at dinner had turned in their chairs to look. Some stood up and walked over, their flip flops slapping on the way. David was flat on his back looking up at Amy crouched over him, holding his head up in her hands. Sunburnt and sunscreened faces ringed his view of her, but Amy’s presence gave him the confidence and the calm to think fuck you all.

David stared at Amy and looked at no one else. He was going to be all right. And, either way, he’d be better than them.

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M. Dalton Eloy is a writer originally from Arizona, now based in Washington, DC. His work has been featured in Open Ceilings Magazine, 86 Logic, and others. Connect with him on Bluesky.